Christopher Kidd was a tenant farmer upon the Drayton land.
Moreover, he was a suitor, earnest as bashful, for the hand of my
little abigail, Prudence Emmet. While, therefore, matter of business
might bring him four times in the year to the Manor House to speak
with Sir Michael, love was used to fetch him thrice in a week
dangling about the place for the chance of being well snubbed,
mightily put upon, and most truculently railed at by little Prue.
And she, for all her cruelty, was not to be thought altogether
indifferent to this stalwart yeoman (for he was of that stock, though
himself but a tenant). I at least could never think her intention to
him unkindly after being witness of her distress when Mr. Kidd rode
southwards on my father's behalf to seek news of the Prince of Orange
more certain than the bare rumor that had reached us of his landing
at Brixham. For no sooner was he departed than Prudence, although
saucy with him even in her last words, became much cast down in
spirit, fearing he would not return, and I know not what beside.
Now all the world knows that it was upon the fifth day of November,
in the year 1688, that His Highness set foot on shore. And I
remember well that the fifth fell that year upon a Monday. For ever
since he had received by an unknown hand a printed copy of the
Prince's Declaration, in which was set forth not only His Highness's
purpose to come to the rescue of the liberties of England, but also
at great length the reasons of this design, my father had resolved to
throw in his lot with him; and, this resolve once made, he greatly
desired to be among the very first to offer support, saying a Drayton
should never be in the number of those that must wait to see how the
cat would jump. And so he was, through the last days of October and
the first week of November, in a great excitement of waiting ever for
news that did not come. And, the first rumor of His Highness's
coming reaching us on the morning after that landing in Torbay, Sir
Michael came to the still-room, hobbling with his stick (for his
wound was again troubling him) to find me, being in great hope that
the news would prove true that the Prince had made choice of our
coast, and not, as had been expected, that of Yorkshire. Now I was
busied with the brewing of our gooseberry wine, while Prudence and
two of the maids were mending the house-linen under my eyes for the
greater despatch and fineness of their work. And it was of a Tuesday
that this mending was always done, for Sir Michael had instilled much
of the old soldier's order and system into my manner of housekeeping.
But this day I do think the gooseberry wine had little thought or
care, for to me the coming of the Prince meant the coming of Mr.
Royston, that I had not encountered since I was a woman grown; it
being indeed three years and over since he went out of the country,
and near upon twice that space of time since we had so met that we
might fairly perceive, the one what manner of man, the other what
manner of woman, we were. And I laughed softly in myself to think at
what advantage I held him. For him I should surely know among a
thousand, while he--well, it would be as it should fall. For,
knowing as I knew him, I was sure that if at all he remembered me, he
had doubtless all those years been holding still in his inner eye the
picture of a little, ugly, and ill-kempt hoyden. And I laughed
again, and wondered why I laughed, finding my mind something of a
puzzle to itself. For, while I knew I was no longer ill to look
upon, I found my face grow hot at the thought of Ned's eyes on me,
which before I had never done.
It was then upon the Tuesday that we heard the great news; upon the
Wednesday that Mr. Kidd, at the instance of Sir Michael, rode off
Exeter way to hear more. And so, in suspense little relieved by
further and growing rumor, we waited until the Saturday, when about
five in the afternoon Prudence, ever on the watch, was the first to
spy her lover as he rode up the avenue. His horse was caked over
with mud to the very girths, for the roads were foul with long and
heavy rains. Nor had the mud spared the rider; but the soil borne by
the two was as nothing to the weight of mystery and the burden of
importance that I marked in Farmer Kidd's bearing as he flung himself
from the saddle, and, brushing by little Prue with the briefest of
nods, strode big with news to the little parlor beyond the hall,
where Sir Michael did use to sit of an evening. And then, as I
looked from the window of the hall where I sat, I knew from her face
that Prudence would surely wed him some day, but first would make the
rude fellow most bitterly repent that slight of counting her next to
politics and warfare.
For my part, since I was not Prue, I soon forgave the man, in return
for the great story he had to tell of the Prince's entry into the
city of Exeter. For he had beheld that great pageant, with news of
which all the west was soon to be ringing, and, indeed, in no great
space, the whole country. And, if it gained as much in many mouths
as I have since reason to suppose it gained in Farmer Kidd's, 't is
little wonder it was soon believed an army of giants and magicians
had crossed the sea in aid of the Protestant religion. The Earl of
Macclesfield, who had come out of Holland with the Prince, leading a
band of English gentlemen, two hundred strong, was with his following
an object of wondrous admiration to Mr. Kidd, who would never tire, I
thought, in telling of their great Flanders horses, their glittering
armor, and their negro slaves, one to each man, in white and
feathered turbans. And then it was the bridge of boats laid across
the Exe in the twinkling of an eye to give passage to the wagons; the
twenty pieces of ordnance--great brass cannon, only to be moved by
teams of sixteen horses to each; the stature of the men; the new sort
of muskets; the order of the discipline, so that none would so much
as steal a hen from a cottage garden, but all things were as
willingly paid for as supplied. Then Kidd must draw comparisons
between these military manners and those of Kirke's and Trelawney's
Regiments of Foot, as seen in the troubles of three years ago; and
all this time poor I waiting on his words but half interested, and
satisfied not at all, until I could lead him, too full of his own
great importance to perceive the guidance, to some description of the
Prince's Swedish Regiment of Horse. For it was to this body that Mr.
Royston had, it was now some months, been transferred, receiving at
the same time promotion to the rank of captain.
So as long as our messenger, between the draughts of his ale fetched
him by Prudence with hands as willing as the pouting mouth would fain
have shown her reluctant, would descant of the black chargers, the
black armor, the great broadswords, and the furred cloaks of this
same Swedish cavalry, I listened as eagerly as my father had done to
it all. And as the man dwelt on the gallant show they did make I was
plotting to bring him to some mention of what I doubted not was among
them the gallantest figure of all, but was prevented by my father
asking if Mr. Kidd would ride the same road again, and carry a letter
to His Highness of Orange. "With the best meal we can make you on
short notice, Mr. Kidd, to comfort you within, and the best nag in
Drayton stables between your knees?" said Sir Michael, in conclusion
of his request.
Christopher Kidd was ready enough not only to oblige Sir Michael, but
also, I believe, to return to the great sights and doings of which
his mouth was so full; so, he being despatched in care of Prudence to
be fed, I was left with my father. And when I had given him his
writing things he opened his mind a little to me.
"I had gathered from Kidd, before you entered," he said, "that the
common people are ready to do all and risk all for the Prince, but
that since he landed no man of substance and gentry has joined his
army." And here for a moment he did bite the feather of his pen, and
looked in my face, so that I knew that the mind that was now long
made up still felt pain to tell its resolve. Then he went on thus:
"You that know me so well, little daughter Phil, have guessed, I do
not doubt, this many a day how my mind was going in these matters.
And seeing that it was decided, contrary to the use and belief of my
life, in favor of His Highness before ever he came, I cannot now in
honor hang back. It cannot be recruits for rank and file, raw
soldiers at the best, that he needs, with such an army at his back;
but I believe it is rather the countenance and support of the solid
men of the country he asks, to take from his presence the odious
seeming of invasion. And I am in great fear it may all miscarry,
even as Monmouth's wicked business, on account of the behavior of
those who, willing to bring, yet fear to welcome His Highness. You
have, I do think, partly seen what it has cost your old Cavalier
father to adopt a part against his old master's son. But it would
cost me more if my hand were not as good as my thought. Yet, if I so
make it, I risk all that is yours who but enter upon life,--little
for myself whose sands are at the last falling grains. Sedgemoor,
Kirke, Jeffreys, were summer-evening ripples on a mill-pond to the
storm that is coming, if His Highness meet defeat in the field or
abandon his undertaking, which last I take it he is like enough to
do, if forced to the appearance of a foreign enemy. I did purpose
now writing a letter to His Highness. The act will be mine, but the
danger, my daughter, will be yours. How shall it be?"
I pushed the inkhorn to him over the table.
"Write, dear sir," I said. "Your hand shall not fail your thought
for me. And I would mine," I added, putting a hand in his, "were as
strong for the cause my heart holds the better as yours has ever
been."
He looked in my face as he took it, and the old gleam flashed a
moment in his age-saddened eyes.
"My lass," he said, "there 's Drayton in you for two men," and began
to write forthwith; but soon paused, saying: "Wilt run, child, to the
stable, and choose for Mr. Kidd? We have here no better head for
horseflesh, and my old piece cannot keep these new nags well
distinguished." And as I reached the door he called after me that I
should not give him Skewbald Meg, whose appearance would do little
honor to his errand or His Highness of Orange. And I cried back that
poor Meg would break her heart with the weight of the man, and so to
the stable. For, since her midnight ride to Lyme, I was never
pleased that any but I should mount the mare.
And when I returned to my father the letter was written, which he
would have me read. As I remember, it ran in this way:
"YOUR HIGHNESS,--I have within this hour in which I write received
the certain news of Your Highness's coming into England. Without
delay, then, I do myself the honor to inform Your Highness that I
have attached myself and my household to his party and interest. The
reasons that have led me to this are for the most part set out in
that noble declaration published by Your Highness before his coming
among us. Yet it is not without great pain that I, an old servant
and soldier of Your Highness's grandfather of blessed memory, King
Charles I., find myself inditing an epistle that sets me in a manner
at war with his son. It is written with a hand that now finds the
pen heavier than the sword was wont to be. I am too old and too
infirm to pay to Your Highness in person the respect I feel. And I
am too old a soldier to embarrass Your Highness's encampment with
even my small body of men; it is possible they are not needed. Yet
Your Highness is to know that they are to the number of a dozen, at
his command, living meantime at free quarters, and getting such drill
and practice in arms and evolutions, both men and beasts, as two
old-fashioned soldiers can give. May God use Your Highness as you
shall use this unhappy land. Your Highness's most respectful and
obedient servant,
"M. DRAYTON."
And this letter, somewhat proud in its tones, as I thought (but not
one word of it would Sir Michael change), reached the hand of the
Prince by that of Christopher Kidd early upon the following morning,
which was Sunday. It seems, from what I afterwards heard, that being
deep in affairs His Highness did not break the seal until after the
great and solemn service in the cathedral that was that morning held.
Now the bishop had fled to London before the gates of Exeter were
opened to the Prince. The dean had followed him, and from this
service the canons of the chapter carefully abstained themselves.
Even the prebendaries and the singers of the choir fled from their
stalls on the first words of Dr. Burnet's reading from the pulpit the
Prince's famous Declaration. So, for all the pomp and the noble
sermon of that great divine, it was in no mild or pleasant humor that
His Highness returned to his lodging at the Deanery. Here chancing
to open my father's letter, he took great pleasure in it, remarking
to Mr. Bentinck that there was, after all, hope that he had not come
in vain, when so stanch and famous a Cavalier as Sir Michael Drayton,
of whom he had often heard, did so address him. He sent at once for
Christopher Kidd, and very graciously bade him thank Sir Michael for
his promptitude, which, he said, had done much to console him in a
grievous hour; adding that he would send in good time for his little
band, and hoped himself to pass, within some days, so near to Drayton
that he might thank him in person. And with this message Christopher
returned.
I have been thus particular because I would have it known that my
father was the first of that great and distinguished number of
gentlemen and noblemen that soon began to flock to the Prince's
standard. I know it has been said that Mr. Burrington, of Crediton,
was the first that came in, bringing with him a good company of
followers. Now it is well known that Mr. Burrington did not arrive
in Exeter till the Monday. But Sir Michael Drayton's adhesion to the
cause being conveyed by letter, and his men kept a-drilling at his
cost until they should be required, has put my dear father's name out
of the histories, where it should stand as that of the man who first
held out a hand to comfort a great Prince oppressed to despondency of
mind by a backwardness that seemed ingratitude.